On 7/9/2017 9:26 AM, J. Clarke wrote:
In article ,
says...

On Sunday, July 9, 2017 at 5:44:38 AM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
In article ,
says...

On Friday, July 7, 2017 at 7:18:54 PM UTC-5, Leon wrote:

Looks like one of the competitors that appreciates the technology took
Gass seriously.

I'm betting that we might see more tools from Festool that might have
this type technology.

This all assuming that they bought the rights to this technology also.

Probably a couple of different things at play here. I don't know Gass, never met him, but he has a reputation for his abrasive behavior. I don't see much commentary about the actual technological achievements, but it could be he has taken this as far as his own talent can take it. While furthering his own agenda he has no doubt sunk countless hours and dollars into defending the blade stop patents.

A fresh infusion of money, a team of exacting engineers with new ideas and energy could be a real boon to SawStop. Plus, a billion dollar company with a hard of lawyers will be defending the SawStop technology as they have aggressively done with their own products.

My hope was that Gass would run out of gas and start licensing the technology and its ancillary developments.

He was always happy to license it. The trouble is he wanted a bizarre
royalty arrangement--3% of wholesale initially, going to 8% if most of the
industry adopted the technology.

With their teams of patent attorneys and the own marketing plans, no
doubt in my mind that TTS will guard, protect and hoard the technology
until they no longer can.

I dunno. European companies have a reputation for being fairly altruistic
with regard to safety technologies.


Just a question, not an attack:

If Festool is indeed altruistic regarding the technology and allows other to incorporate
it in their own tools - at what you would consider a fair royalty arrangement - would you
still refuse to buy Festool products based solely on the fact that Gass is part of the company?

As long as he personally was profiting from the purchase, yes. The sort of
behavior in which he has engaged should not be encouraged.

If Festool does as Mercedes did with four-wheel electronically controlled
anti-skid and makes it available to the industry at no charge then I would
consider such a tool.

Agreed that Mercedes has shared some safety technologies. BUT I
recently was doing some research on a few Mercedes models. They state
that they have hundreds of safety patents. I read that as safety
features that they are not willing to share freely. So like ANY
business there is a limit as to what they are willing to share.